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Amazon Gets Greener Lush During the Dry Season!

Amazon seems to break the rule of seasons. While in the dry season leaves fall off the trees and the green lush vanishes across the world, the Amazon rainforest puts on its biggest growth spurt. And this finding left the researchers surprised and pondering.

Alfredo R. Huete, lead researcher of The University of Arizona in Tucson said, “Most of the vegetation around the world follows a general pattern in which plants get green and lush during the rainy season and then during the dry season, leaves fall because there’s not enough water in the soil to support plant growth… What we found for a large section of the Amazon is the opposite. As soon as the rains stop and you start to enter a dry period, the Amazon becomes alive. New leaves spring out, there’s a flush of green growth and the greening continues as the dry season progresses.”

But, the finding holds true only for the undisturbed portion of the rainforest! Areas where the primary forest has been converted to other uses or disturbed, “brown down” in the dry season, said Huete, a UA professor of soil, water and environmental science. So, are we, the humans, to be blamed for the leaves-fall during the summer season?

Via: Biology News

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